


Five Hair Ties

by leonheart2012



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Best Boy Friend Hugs are important, But like direct, But with a happy ending, Depression, Please dont yell at me if i missed some tags, Self-Harm, Sleeping Together, That's thw whole thing, The bestest of friends Kuroo and Kozume, but not in a romantic way, don't come in..., i dunno, if ya catch ma drift..., just like...it's kinda...semi-graphic self-harming, kinda sad, nothing graphic, so if that's not up your alley, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21671713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonheart2012/pseuds/leonheart2012
Summary: No one from their school really knows why, but Kuroo Tetsuro always carries around a bag with five hair ties. Sometimes, it drops to four or even three, but they always come back at some point. Some girls ask him for a spare, but he tells them that he has them for a special purpose.There are rumours going around that they’re for a secret girlfriend. Others just suggest he uses them to keep his wild hair out of his eyes when he kisses said girlfriend.But the truth is so much more troubling.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kozume Kenma, Kozume Kenma & Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 5
Kudos: 96





	Five Hair Ties

No one from their school really knows why, but Kuroo Tetsuro always carries around a bag with five hair ties. Sometimes, it drops to four or even three, but they always come back at some point. Some girls ask him for a spare, but he tells them that he has them for a special purpose.

There are rumours going around that they’re for a secret girlfriend. Others just suggest he uses them to keep his wild hair out of his eyes when he kisses said girlfriend.

But the truth is so much more troubling.

He doesn’t have to say anything; Tetsuro can tell, just by looking at him, that he’s been doing it again. Without any words passing between them, he holds out a hair tie from the bag, and Kenma takes it, looking away, slipping it over his wrist. He must have had a pretty bad day yesterday, Tetsuro thinks, watching him walk away.

Three days later, he gives the hair tie back, and Tetsuro accepts it without complaint. He can tell he’s been doing better.

The next day, he gives it right back.

Kenma looks at the hair tie around his wrist, forcing himself to think about everything it means, but it’s too hard. The knife is right there, and it’s so easy…

Tetsuro can see it in his face as soon as he steps into the gym. He gives him his second hair tie, which is accepted without any fanfare.

_Two_. It’s been a few months since he’s had this many. He’s been doing well. But the ugly monsters are rearing their heads, and the depression is sinking deeper into his lungs, his heart, his brain, twisting the knife in his hand into the meat of his upper thigh, the blood dripping down and staining the towel he’s laid out on the bed, and he closes his eyes, feeling helpless.

He spreads the mattress out on the floor. Kenma looks so small, sitting in the corner of his room, pressed right up against the wall.

“It’s only for three days, Ken. You can make it through that.”

Kenma nods slightly, but he wraps himself around his knees tighter, curling into the tiniest ball possible. Tetsuro’s heart squeezes in his chest, but he knows that trying to coax him out of his shell just makes him shut down even more. So he lets him be, curled into his tight little ball.

At least he isn’t hurting himself.

It was Kenma who had come up with the system, smart as he is. He’d written it down, because he couldn’t bring himself to verbally ask for help. Everyone on the team knew about the self-harming; it was hard to miss the stark white scars against the pale skin of his legs, even if they only got glimpses of them.

He had started soon after turning eight, utterly unhappy with everything in the world. He had felt lonely, useless, and desperate for a release. Which had led to the first bloodletting. It had only been a temporary solution, until he could talk to Tetsuro about it. It had been something to do in the summer when it was too hot to play volleyball. It wasn’t supposed to get this bad.

Tetsuro strokes his fingers through Kenma’s hair, bleaching it so the roots are also coloured. The younger boy hums and leans into the touch, a small smile gracing his lips. Tetsuro wishes he could make him smile more often.

Just as the last day is coming around, Kenma does it again. He doesn’t even try to hide it like he did at first. He knows that Tetsuro will always know, so there’s no point.

Tetsuro opens the door to see him with the knife already pressed into his flesh, hot red blood oozing and bubbling out of the wound and onto his skin, the towel underneath him, his fingers, making a mess. Before, he would have freaked out, yelled at him, but experience has told him that’s the worst reaction. So he calmly comes over to the bed, wraps his fingers around Kenma’s and gently pries them away from the handle.

All the knives are safely locked away in the box. Kenma doesn’t know the combination. He can’t get in. Tetsuro knows that, if he really wanted to, he could go out and buy another knife from the store, but he doesn’t dwell on it too much. He tries to ignore the emptiness of the bag, tries not to look at the four bands on Kenma’s wrist, but it’s so hard. Everything in him screams that this is wrong, that he needs to wrap Kenma in his arms and protect him from the world, from himself, but he knows that it won't help anything, so he just lets him go, watching as he spirals, helpless, just hoping that he reaches out and snags onto the good of life again.

The first therapy session is on Friday, after school. Tetsuro drops him off, making sure he goes in, waits, then takes him home again. They don’t really talk like they would if Kenma was feeling better.

Tetsuro takes him to see a movie that night, but they both walk away feeling dissatisfied.

“Kuroo.” Kenma says as he gets into bed. He doesn’t need to ask. Tetsuro abandons his own bed and climbs in with Kenma, wrapping his arms around his waist, breathing in his scent, closing his eyes and drifting off until day breaks again.

He loves him. Not in the romantic way, but in the brotherly way. He strokes his hair back from his brow and watches him breathing deeply. He looks peaceful in his sleep.

Tetsuro wishes there was more he could do. He wishes he could put all the right chemicals in his brain, to make the monsters go away. He wishes he could use his long fingers to tease out all the bad thoughts, just pluck them away. He wishes he could use his voice to soothe him back into some semblance of normalcy. But it’s never going to be that easy.

He takes the fourth hair tie off of him on the weekend, tucking it back into his pouch before wrapping his arms around the smaller boy’s shoulders.

Kenma closes his eyes and nuzzles his chest slightly, just like a cat, and Tetsuro wishes he could squeeze tighter and never let go. He wishes he could protect Kenma from the world for ever.

Tetsuro will forever be in Hinata Shouyou’s debt. He didn’t cure Kenma entirely, but after meeting him, Kenma has had far fewer depressive episodes. Every time they spend time together, Kenma’s exhausted, but it’s better than the cutting, better than racking up two, three, four hair ties in a matter of days. It’s better than the moping, better than the apathy.

“Can we go watch this?” Kenma asks, pointing to an action-movie poster.

“Really? You’re interested?”

“Shouyou told me it was good.”

Tetsuro smiles. He’s not cured, not by a long shot, but this is definitely better than having hair ties. “Of course we can go see it. Did you want to invite him, too?”


End file.
